It Tasted Like Cake
by Xekstrin
Summary: When Stork's birthday runs around, Wasp has a strange idea of what constitutes a good present. Femslash.
1. It Tasted Like Cake

**A/N:** Fanfiction for fanfiction? What madness is this?! Of course this isn't the first time I've responded to a fanfiction I've liked. Either way, if you haven't read "Gargoyles" by defectivebrainstorm I suggest you march your little fanny out of this story and read it. Now. NAO!

This takes place long after the Storm Hawks are gone. Or at least ten years or so after they are gone. And as for the plot of "Gargoyles", it doesn't really exist. I'm just taking the characters for a spin!

If I could choose the categories for this, I would say "Humor" and "Awesome" but since I can't I'll just put "General".

"**Got a big plan his mind's set maybe it's right at the right place and right time- maybe tonight."**

**- "Tear You Apart" by She Wants Revenge.**

**OoOoOo**

I wish I could say, "It started innocently enough."

But hey, let's be honest here. There ain't nobody on this ship that I could deem as "innocent" without then proceeding to laugh my guts out onto the floor of the _Merlin_. Angel is, despite his name, a vicious kid with a vicious sense of humor. He's not a _bad_ kid… he's just no angel. If you didn't know any better you might say Fraggle, our resident Speedy Gonzales and carrier pilot, is innocent, but in reality he's just so dumb he doesn't know how to be bad. I don't think that really counts as innocence. Varan might be a sugar puff, but I know the sad, sad reason why the innocence of his eyes has been filed away to dullness by the experience of his past. Wasp is… Wasp is Wasp. I don't even want to know the shit she's been in, literally and figuratively. About the closest I could get to innocence, on this ship anyway, is my boy Falshade. He's just about the most nauseatingly heroic punk I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, in all my short sixteen years of life.

I mean seventeen.

Did I mention it all started the day I turned seventeen?

And by that I mean eight days ago?

Varan, being the Commander of All Things Cake, burst into my room seven AM in the morning with a three-layer, _tres leches bizcocho_. Lips peeled back to bare all of his teeth in a big grin, he led the stampede of my squadron mates, all howling at the top of their lungs as they dragged me out of my cozy bed and hefted me up high. I remember screaming something about their ancestors feeling the pain when I was done with them but they ignored me as per usual. I was swept out of my room by two hyperactive boys, a blizzarian fuzzball and a cake-toting lizard.

Wasp, of course, was no where to be seen. But I'll get to that later.

So yeah, by ten in the morning the bridge was a total wreck. There was cake everywhere, due to the fact that the moment they set me down I dug out a handful of the _tres leches _and hurled it right into Fraggle's face, prompting an all-out food fight between everyone while Varan was shrieking for us to stop ruining his masterpiece (I do feel bad about it now, but at that moment I was too livid to care). At least until he got a mouth full of frosting topped with shredded coconut. It was white frosting, which was fine, but it also had accents of pink. Pink! That shit was begging to be thrown.

It was delicious, by the way. Even if it was pink.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I keep on getting distracted from the real meat of the story, don't I? But I can't help it. I'm just so fucking _distraught _right now…

OK. OK. Moving backwards in time now. Back to the birthday. I mentioned Wasp wasn't there, right? Well she shows up not too long after. There's only one layer left of the three layer cake, and she's looking reasonably sane at the moment which is why I of course offered her the first slice of actually sliced cake. Up till then we'd just been shoving it straight from our hands to our mouths in between volleys of cake-tastic missiles. I don't know what I was thinking when I did that- lapse in judgment, I guess, or maybe in the mayhem I forgot how she can be- so when I gave her the plate she held it like a waiter, her fingertips supporting it from beneath instead of grabbing it on the rim of the plate like a normal person. She blinked at me, and turned her attention to the cake in her hands and blinked at that as well, before gingerly placing the plate on top of her head, arms out to keep her balance as she walked away with her prize. The bridge doors opened and closed, and Wasp was gone.

"Did you really expect anything different?" Angel wanted to know, draping one arm on my shoulder and leaning on me like I was a piece of furniture. I slapped him away with a rapid flutter of my hands, going "shoo shoo shoo shoo shoo shoo! Notouchie!" and the incident was forgotten.

Until the next day when she shows up for breakfast- with the cake still on her head. She'd apparently gotten the hang of having desert balancing on top of your noggin, because she moved quick as you please to her seat at the table and plonked herself down between me and Falshade and the cake never lost its precarious perch.

"You know that wasn't for decoration, right Wasp?" Angel drawled from his end of the table.

"Well, everyone else was wearing their cake," was Wasp's defense. I blinked. Strangely enough, it made sense. We were covered in cake yesterday. Angel sighed while I coughed into my napkin to keep from bursting out into giggles- I am _not_ a giggler- and Varan informed Wasp that it was all right to eat the cake now.

"Breakfast of champions…" she murmured under her breath with a pleased smile, placing the plate down on the table before dunking her finger into the icing and loudly slurping it off and proclaiming it to taste like garbage before scarfing down the rest of it. By then it was really getting hard to control myself so I walked outside to allow a few chuckles- _chuckles_, not _giggles_- out of my mouth, propping myself against the hallway of the _Merlin_.

When I turned around to re-enter the kitchen, the automatic doors slid open and Wasp walked in. I took a step back, startled, and then moved to my left at the same time she moved to her right. The automatic door slid shut behind her, sensing no one trying to get through. Then I moved to my right just as she moved to her left, that awkward dance that people do when they're both trying to get through a cramped space. Perhaps tired of the dance- and in hindsight, she was probably doing it on purpose- Wasp reached out to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, bodily lifting me out of the way and to the side so that she could pass. She patted me on the head as she left to her quarters, adding further salt to my wounds of being so frickin' small.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been on an airship, but let me tell you it's not that glamorous. Atmos is frickin' _huge_. And not only is Atmos _huge_, it's also mainly _empty_. Unless you count deserted and/or uncharted Terras and the Wastelands. The stretch of time to get from one Terra to the other can span for days… and days… and days… and… and well you get the picture. So we do things to pass the time, we work out, spar, we read books, we work out some more, we sleep a shit load, and basically just convert food into poop. And that day, I was feeling antsy, so I went to the training room and decided to show out resident dummies the finesse of kick-assery. I don't know how long I was in there, but it was long, and my mind was pleasantly blank of everything but the buzz in my over used muscles, the sweat stinging my eyes, the lead in my feet and the prospect of a nice, long shower. Maybe a bath.

Those were the only thoughts to cross my mind. That's just how tired I was. How pooped, you might say. But when I opened the automatic sliders and stepped into the hallways there was Wasp again, looking lost. Knowing her, she probably was. Or maybe she was on her way to teach a few dummies a lesson, or maybe trying to catch me and start an impromptu sparring match. We did that sometimes.

Or maybe she was just trying to catch me.

Either way, we had only just started the dance of, 'uh, 'scuse me, I'll go this way, uh, I guess maybe I'll go THAT way then' when she just decided to keep on walking, right into me, before I had to side step it. She kept on walking, arms outstretched to form a cage around me, and I backstepped once, twice, until it became obvious that she was steering me in a mini circle and then it was too late, because I was trapped between a wall and a Wasp place.

I looked up, exasperated and seriously wanting to go take a shower cause (and let's be honest here) I stunk and I knew it. And then I opened my mouth to say, "I'm a little stuck here, Wasp." or something like that.

I should never.

Open.

My mouth.

_Ever_.

"_Mw-mwwalsp_?!"


	2. The Door Was Wide Open

**A/N: **I can't leave well enough alone, can I? The challenge of writing from Wasp's point of view was too much for me to ignore, so I stepped up to the plate and took a swing at it. And the swing turned into a game of Let's-See-Which-Bases-Wasp-Can-Steal-Without-Everyone-Getting-Too-Far-Out-Of-Character.

BWAHAHAHAHAAHA.

I am the self-proclaimed queen of shoujo-ai for a reason.

Since Wasp listens to a lot of loud music, and I didn't have access to loud music at the writing of this story, I just chose some songs from the bands I listen to that might be loud/disturbed enough for Wasp if she decided to experiment with new bands.

"How They Getcha" by The Vandals, "Suppuration-Core" by KOTOKO, and "Three Simple Words" by Finch are used in this story.

"**I swore I'd never let her go."**

**- "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine" by The Killers.**

"**Give me one good reason why I should let go. With my hands around your neck, who will stop me now? With my hands around your neck, who will stop me now? With my hands around your neck, who will stop me now? With my hands around your neck, who will stop me- NOW! Who will stop me now? Who will stop me now? Who will stop me now? Who will stop me now?"**

**- "Three Simple Words" by Finch.**

**OoOoOo**

_I remember when it happened, when the danger all started. It started with the Shift, the sudden crashing of gears, the tumblers falling into place, the destruction of a carefully constructed little barrier in my mind that had been so transparent I'd never even known it was there. Until it was gone. _

"Sick."

I give him another friendly lick, running my tongue along his spine. He tastes like the desert we had just left, the bumps of his vertebrae like small sand dunes in themselves, rising and falling under the skin. He looks up at me with impenetrable black eyes, though I'd like to think that I feel a mutual trust with the small creature.

"Do you have any idea where that thing might have been?"

"Mm-mm," I say out loud for Stork's benefit, having finally gotten into the habit of verbalizing certain things. And then I realize Stork's ears aren't as good as mine, so I shake my head. The things I have to do for these humans... Gently stroking the lizard in my hand, I hold him up to my face, to better peer into those solid black eyes. "He's so cute," I say, a small blossom of love blooming in my heart for him, reaching through my whole chest. Maybe it was a creeper vine in bloom. Creeper vines. Yeah. That would explain the tendrils. Choking. Maybe love wasn't a good idea right now.

I'm lying on my belly, face close to the floor, and the palm that the lizard is resting on is open so I don't know why he doesn't scatter off with a rustle of dry limbs. "I think I'll name him... Dilong."

Stork blinks at me. "Dilong? Sounds like a bastard child of Ding-Dong."

I roll over onto my back, only half listening to my friend as I put my new friend on my chest, where he crouches, motionless save for the rapid flutter of his crimson, bulbous, expanding and deflating throat. He breathes so quickly it was like bird wings in flight. "Because he's a dragon," I say under my breath, more for my benefit than for Stork's.

"Say what?"

My left ear twitches. "Females tend to work in synchrony," I tell her. "They send off signals without even meaning to, like how when women who live together long enough start to have their period at the same time. Maybe we're communicating right now." I turn my eyes upwards to look at her, my face blank and glazed but my mind buzzing. "So what did _you_ say?"

Stork doesn't respond- at least, my ears don't hear anything. I remain on the floor on my back, feeling Dilong slither down inch by inch until he's curled up on my belly, soaking up my body heat. We're in my room, Stork sitting on the edge of my desk, her short legs swinging in a steady rhythm. She shrugs, "I don't know," she says at last, having actually given my question serious thought. Then she leaps from the desk, a smooth motion, feet hitting the floor and legs bending for a bit under the impact before she uses that to bounce her first step towards my door. Her hair had grown a little over the past year, just long enough to be a nuisance, even when all gelled up into a flock of arch-winged blond seagulls. With black tips.

_I shifted where I lay as she left, that last image still replaying in my mind, a common moment that for some reason today, today struck a chord. And reverberated._

_Her hand reached up, fingers carelessly sweeping through the mess on top of her head._

I hear a sound like tick, tick, tick, tick. And then I realize it is my teeth, clicking together inside my mouth as though I were chewing on something very gently. Deciding that they are doing this because they're lonely, I pull in my lower lip and pressed it between the lonely teeth, biting savagely while Dilong rests, warm and reassuring, on my stomach.

**OoOoOo**

_Though she was far from a black belt, she tried to learn martial arts. It was a good style for her, focusing on tackling bigger opponents. Because just about every opponent Stork would ever face would always be bigger than her. The kata was a new one, and after studying the diagrams in the book over and over again she had finally figured it out._

Bow. Ready position. Step, punch, step, punch, turn right, low block, turn left, low block, step, front kick, turning kick to the back, spin-backkick-faceforward again...

She turns to face me with sweeping L blocks, red-faced from exertion. I don't look away- why should I?- but I am pressed with the strong urge to do so. Curious about my reaction, I try to dive into my mind and find out why. I normally looked away when it was a matter of dominance. After all, I didn't want to get into a fight with any of my team mates if I didn't have to, especially over all the dumb things that they deem important. But this wasn't a situation like that. Stork wasn't even looking at me- now she's facing the wall, kicking and jumping like there's no tomorrow.

She continues her exercises, probably not noticing me staring, my teeth worrying at the bendy part of the index finger on my left hand. The joint. That's it- but there are so many bendy parts, shouldn't there be different names for them?

The sound of her body whistling through the air distracts me from my thoughts, forcing me to watch her again. Watch her do flips and somersaults, apparently frustrated with the kata and going freestyle on the dummies now. It goes well for her until she attempts a jumping hook kick at the dummy's head and lands flat on her ass. I cluck my tongue, hefting her up by one arm before telling her:

"No no, it's done like this."

I look over my shoulder, my left leg whipping up and my body half-turning with the kick that lands squarely across the dummy's cheek. The head tears free from the torso with a spine-tingling _rrrip_ and lands a little way's away with a dull thud. I grin proudly at Stork, like a kid waiting for mommy's praise, and am disappointed to see envy rather than admiration in her sea green eyes.

Wait- admiration? I want her to admire me? Yeah... that sounds about right, right now.

"Well excuse me for not having insanely long legs, Pipi Longstocking."

My ears fall back a little bit. "I'm Wasp..." I remind her, a little irritated now. Why did she have to get angry? I didn't do anything. Was it because I broke the dummy? Humans could be so touchy sometimes, about the weirdest things. Like this thing, this 'personal space' Angel keeps raving about. True, males were generally territorial in every species, but these males seem to think they carry their territory around with them in this little mobile radius called personal space. I'd sort of learned where the boundaries were, to glide around them so that we don't bump, but Stork's personal space had always been a little lax around me, and Shade says he thinks it's because I'm a girl, when I asked him about it. Was I intruding upon it now? I back up a few steps, just in case.

I still feel the heat of her anger, even when she turns to attack a new dummy. Maybe it's in the way she purposefully avoids looking at me now. I stalk away, feeling nothing but burning, bitter sadness inside me. In fact, it's so hot I feel if I don't cool down right now I might burn up. And then who would feed Dilong all the cockroaches on the ship?

_Hmm_. I stop in front of the bathroom before going in, opening the faucet for a gush of cold water. I splash it on my face, and it feels as good as I hoped it would be. Turning it off, I prance towards the shower, glad I had found relief. Plunging myself under the frigid stream, I sit Indian style on the floor, letting it fall like rain over my head and absorb inside my clothing. The sound of it drowns out everything else and I close my eyes, shocked at first by how simple it was to finally achieve silence before relaxing. It's like, like... like turning up the volume on the music. Only there's no beat, no rhythm, just an endless stream, like how the rain would fall in the jungle, on the broad, green leaves that were big enough to cover an entire family as a roof. Only it was never this cold. I reach up, adjusting the temperature until the bathroom grows steamy with the heat, and I'm swamped in the clean smell. The cleansing heat. All of my anger cauterized.

"Wasp?"

I had left the door open.

Opening my eyes, I glance over at Stork, towel in her hand and surprised to see me. I shrug as a greeting.

"What are you doing?"

I shrug again.

Stork pauses. "Uh..." she starts, but I interrupt her.

"Care to join me? More than enough room for two here."

One blond eyebrow raises. "What exactly are you doing, though?"

"Ah... taking a shower?" I hazard, since that seemed to be a logical excuse. "You're always telling me to take one."

"With... your clothes on."

"Well, my clothes were dirty too." I pat the ground next to me, an open invitation.

Stork shakes her head. "Nah, I'll take one later. You just enjoy yourself. Need soap? There's a fresh bar under the sink." I stiffen in horror, my eyes going wide and she quickly reassures me by saying, "Purely optional. Purely optional."

"Oh." I relax some, tilting my head backwards to catch the water in my mouth and gargle out the tune to my favorite song. Stork still hangs around, and I wonder why until she starts to talk again.

"Listen..." she starts, shuffling in place. I'm listening. "You know, some times you just have to ignore me. I'm a bitch and I know it, but that doesn't mean you have to tolerate it. Feel free to smack me around the next time I'm a spoiled brat. Actually I take that back," she said almost without pausing to take a breath. She probably knew I'd take her up on that offer.

I think about what she said for a long time, splashing the water around every now and then. "Yeah," I say at last.

"Yeah what?" she asks.

"I know you are but what am I?"

"Wasp!" she says, irritation creeping into her tone. Impatience. It makes my hackles rise, and somehow I only get worse when she continues, almost choking on the effort of spitting the words out: "I'm trying to apologize here!"

I stand up, the calming quality of the water disturbed, just as disturbed as a lake when you toss a boulder in it. The water cascades off of my frame as I step out of the shower, suddenly remembering the flame that had filled my body only a mere hour before. "_Then why don't you say I'm sorry?!"_ I shout at her, ears erect and breathing labored as I shove past her and lock myself up in my room, the aching loneliness in my teeth having somehow spread like a cancer without me realizing it. Now my whole upper body feels lonely, so I wrap my arms around myself and shiver as the air conditioner blasts cold air against my wet frame. Suddenly being cold doesn't appeal to me anymore.

I'm such a see-saw.

Yee-haw.

I suck on my lip ring, catching it between my teeth every now and then, in between periods of biting my lip to the point of injury and bleeding. The blood is warm on my face, and I welcome the warmth as readily as I had at first welcomed the cold. Perhaps there was a code, a system I could use to know when cold would calm me down and when it would make me angry. Yes. Further experimentation is required here. Standing up, I stumble around the room until I find my headphones and plug myself in, raising the volume so high it fills my body until the buzzing loneliness goes away and I can't hear the sound of Stork's fist against my bedroom door, bam bam bam bam bam bam bambambambambambambambambam_bambambambambamb_-

**OoOoOo**

_Quite some time had passed before the loneliness finally stopped converting into rage. Conversion factors! There are sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour and twenty four hours in a day and approximately thirty days in a month and twelve months in a year and ten years in a decade and ten decades in a century and ten centuries in a millennia. Decameter meter centimeter millimeter. The meter is the basic SI unit of length, equivalent to approximately 1.094 yards or 39.37 inches._

_I read that in a book._

…_Anyway, moving on:_

"Wasp?"

I sat with my back to the door, taking off my earphones for the first time in an inestimable amount of time. All I know is that I really have to go to the bathroom. That might have something to do with me sucking the moisture out of my clothes when I got thirsty. I don't want Fraggle yelling at me if I make a mess over the side of the ship, though, so I guess eventually I have to leave my room. I bet boys didn't have such problems with relieving themselves. Damn anatomy.

I bang the back of my head against the door.

"You don't have to come out if you don't want to, Wasp, but could you at least let me know if you're alive?"

I turn the volume back up again, screaming with the lead man. "Open up my eyes flooded with daylight, another sleepless night turns color black and white. With all the things I've said, there is just regret, REPEATING IN MY HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAD…"

_Not that I could have heard her in the state I was in, but Stork spoke. "OK, I guess you're alive, so that's good."_

"Hand into a fist, static in my head, now I'm sitting face-to-face with loneliness. What did I expect? Did I see forever, in you?"

"_Um, are you listening?"_

"I never want it to hurt more than it should. I hope you're satisfied I never could. Time to close my eyes, forget about this mess, and try to fix this tragic loss of innocence. But how could I forget the things I have inside WHEN EVERYTHING IS DEAD?"

I switch tracks.

"IT'S A LIE! THAT'S HOW THEY GETCHA! IT'S A LIE! THAT'S HOW THEY GETCHA! IT'S A LIE! THAT'S HOW THEY GETCHA! IT'S A LIE! THAT'S HOW THEY GETCHA! _THAT'S HOW THEY GETCHA_!" My voice goes a little raw and scratchy at that last scream. I switch tracks again. "WHO DA BOSS? NIGGAZ GET TOSSED TO THE SIDE, I AM THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE OF COURSE! It's the method MAN from the Wu-Tang CLAN! I'LL BE HECTIC, AND COMING FOR THAT HEAD PIECE, PROTECT IT! FUCK IT, put your tears IN A BUCKET, niggaz WANT THE RUCKUS…"

"_You're going to have to come out some time, Wasp! You're being ridiculous!"_

_True. But enforced loneliness was easier to deal with than the gaping, raw, suppurating hole inside my chest I felt whenever I thought about her. About the time she was here, her fingers running through her hair._

_Encouraged by that thought, I switched tracks again._

"Flow out this oozy suppuration…"

**OoOoOo**

_By the time her birthday rolled around I was in control of myself again. Mostly, anyway. The cancer had spread throughout my whole body by then, and I had learned to simply deal with it. It became background noise, only spiking to a crescendo every now and then, when I had no music to distract me from my own thoughts, or when Stork was especially kind to me. Which was _all the fucking time_ excuse my Galeian. Since I couldn't run to my room every time she displayed affection towards me I took to wearing the headphones around my neck, taking the portable player with me when I ventured outside my room. I ran through double A batteries very quickly, and then was the most dangerous time of it all. I had to stay to my room or risk running into her. I would watch her only when I knew she couldn't see me. I would stumble, red-faced, from the room if she turned around and waved, or caught my eye and smiled. I prayed for us to reach the next terra so I could restock on batteries, and kept to my room, and sometimes I took my calming pseudo showers. (Stork was right, it was actually kind of nice to take a shower. Just as long as there was no soap involved. And I always kept my clothes on, especially my security jacket, the one I kept my pills in. There were even times when I got into the zone like that first time, the shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of the water lulling me to a natural sleep, unaided by regularly scheduled doses of controlled substances.)_

_The noise was what alerted me. It was almost louder than my music, so I switched it off and ran to the bridge, expecting to find us under attack. But it was just the Gargoyles being the Gargoyles, slinging cake every which way and screaming at the top of their lungs._

Stork turns around, spots me in the doorway. I fidget in my boots, squirming and wondering if I should run away while I still have the willpower. She tells me to wait; I lose my willpower and wait.

Grinning up at me, teeth brilliant from behind a mask of pink and white icing, cheeks flushed from embarrassment and excitement, breathless with laughter. "Here you go, Wasp!" she says, handing over a plate of cake for me.

I grip her outstretched wrists, the breath suddenly escaping my lungs as I look at her. I realize now- as if it weren't obvious before- that the hole inside my chest was shaped like her. I should pull her inside, and hold her there. But my grip slips on the icing and I fumble, grabbing the plate of cake carefully so that it won't fall, and place it on top of my head so that my hands could be free. My throat loosens and air returns to my lungs, feeding my dead brain cells so that I can turn around and stumble from the room like I always do.

"What should I do, Dilong?" I ask my pet lizard once I reach my room, adjusting the cake every now and then so that it didn't slide off. "I'm frightened. I wanna hurl, sometimes. And sometimes I want to touch her hair like she did, the first day. Maybe I should shave it all off while she's sleeping. That's what started it."

_But I knew that wouldn't help, because after the initial barrier was broken I saw everything about her that I wanted to touch. Places like her belly, where I knew she was ticklish. Intimate, defenseless places, like the spot between her shoulder blades when she's leaving the bathroom after a shower, the beads of water clinging to her bare, pink skin. Once, a long time ago, someone had pressed their face against that spot on my own bare back and spoken soft words to me. Perhaps something about that spot was hollow, because I felt the echo, the vibration of those words throughout my entire body. I wondered if Stork knew what that felt like, because either way I wanted to show her how it would be with my voice._

I hold Dilong to my chest and stroke his dry, warm skin. But he can't fit the hole inside me, ease the teeth-aching loneliness. His personality isn't nearly big enough.

_The cake slipped and I caught it, placing it back on top of my head. Apologizing to Dilong for the sudden movement, I let him roam free around my room while I sat on my bed, back against the wall, and plugged myself in. _

I'm plugged in. I'm plugged in. I'm…

_I fell asleep with the music roaring in my ears._

**OoOoOo**

_There were only two options. Do nothing, or do something. I couldn't sit by and let this happen to me, so I decided to do something. The morning had been fine, but once I returned to the safety of my room I knew that actions had to be taken._

Perhaps I can start by talking to her.

_Yeah, right._

_My teeth were lonely. So were my hands- my feet were tingling, my chest heaving, my smile forced and psychotic. She moved to her right. I moved to my left. She moved to her left. I moved to my right. And in her face, I could see that she had no idea I was blocking her on purpose, playing with her like a cat with a mouse. I stepped forward, relishing in my size, my weight, pushing her back with her respect of this traveling radius of "personal space". She stepped backwards to avoid it- perhaps the optical abilities of humans can see it, like a different prism of light, like… like a noise so high only dogs or Blizarians could hear it. She stepped back to avoid mine, or to avoid mine mingling with hers, and I steered her around until she was against the wall, the palm of my hands feeling the cold steel of the Merlin just above her head, my arms forming a roof and a cage._

She looks up at me with her round, confused eyes, and I feel the thrill of a successful hunt. And the loneliness of my teeth spills into my lips and I allow myself to touch her. I allow myself to invade her precious personal space-

-Violently.

-Intrusively.

-Demandingly.

-Breathlessly.

_-Completely_.

"_Wasp_?!"

Her voice, muffled with my mouth. My hands, moving from her shoulders to her neck, not to throttle her but to feel her pulse, though the threat of suffocation is very real right now. I remember I have a nose and breathe through that, nostrils flaring wide though all the air in the _Merlin_ doesn't seem enough so I manage to untangle myself from her, take a pull from the sweet oxygen and exhale, my whole body shaking from the effort.

I'm crouching, knees bent so we're at eye level, so that I can push my chest against hers, the rapid beat of her heart dancing under my fingertips, under the fragile layer of skin on her neck, the evaporating sweat on her skin. I release my left hand from its grip on her neck only to trail down between the mounds of her breasts and that's when she stops me.

_A grand total of seven seconds had passed._

She grabs my wrist to stop me from exploring a little more, sputtering: "N-no."

_However, my right hand was still free, the dip between my thumb and index finger filled by her jutting chin. My thumb kept it pinned there; the rest of my fingers were splayed across her right cheek._

I tilt my head to the side in question, curiosity driving me to speak: "Why?" and, in a sudden burst of fear because I realize I might have destroyed everything, I add, "Can you put, "Her Teeth Were Lonely" on my epitaph? You know. A-after you kill me?"

She must be shell shocked, because she doesn't scream at me, or get angry or anything. She just gently pushes me away, as a large part of me knew she would do. _And a larger part that hoped she wouldn't._ Then my knees give way and I let her go, plopping down on the floor with my eyes trained on her booted feet, the edges of the hole inside me dulling so that the fall isn't so steep. Instead I feel that same dulling sensation through out my whole body as her feet lift up and down, mechanically walking away without another word.

_And so here I am, seven days later. I've kept mostly to my room, and she hers. Neither of us have so much shared a Good Morning in the hallway…_

…_Until now._

_She's in my room, like the day of the Shift. Her hair gelled, wild, and still soft under my hand as I ruffle it fondly, as I sometimes allowed myself to do when watching her was simply not good enough. She holds a wriggling beetle in one hand, pinched between her thumb and index finger. She holds it out to me. "Here, a peace offering."_

_I smile uncertainly, accepting the bug. But just when I'm about to pop it into my mouth Stork rushes forward, grabbing my hands to stop me. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" she says, panic in her voice. "It's for Dilong, not you! Jeez!"_

_Oh. That sort of makes sense. I toss the beetle over to the lizard, who snaps it up in midair. I swear, he doesn't move unless there's food involved. Stork shakes her head at me in disbelief, yet I can see she's fighting back laughter. "Do you often eat bugs?"_

"_Only when there aren't any birds."_

_Nonplussed, Stork scuffs one foot against the floor, finding it incredibly interesting because she can't seem to look anywhere else. "So, uh… I've been thinking…"_

_Me too, Stork. Thinking is fun, sometimes. Then other times it makes you want to jump off the _Merlin_ while still in the air. Which would kill you. Unless you had wings. Now _that_ would be handy. Maybe even better than a tail. But a tail, man, that's just plain awesome. Not that I would need to choose between the two anytime soon._

_Her mouth twists in a familiar expression as she finally looks up at me. It's the face she generally makes before she says, "OK, maybe this wasn't such a good idea."_

_But she doesn't. She says:_

"_Damn it, Wasp. You are like, really really tall."_

_I blink. And then I find myself staring at the ceiling as she sweeps one leg at mine, knocking me flat. I look up at her in bewilderment, her shape made fuzzy from the fact that I'm looking at her from behind the black, dirty curtain that is my hair. Kneeling in the space between my spread-eagled legs, her hand clamp down on my upper arms to pin me down before she kisses me ._

"_BWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!"_

_"A-Angel!?"_


	3. Be Careful With That Knife

"Ouch."

I curse at myself as the blood rushes to the surface faster than you can say _sharp knife._ What's worse is the fucking stuff gets all over the bread I was slicing for my sandwich. And man, I thought even I couldn't mess up a sandwich, all you have to do is stack shit on top of other shit and shove it in your mouth and look at what I managed to do. No wonder Varan doesn't let me near the stove.

"Hope you like bloody sandwiches," I mutter to Wasp, turning around to rest against the counter, sullenly glaring at my wound. The sink is right next to me but I can't help but sulk for a few seconds before moving to wash it. After all, I might get a little pity love from my girlfriend if I act wounded enough. I hop up to sit on the counter, swinging my legs so that the heels of my boots bang against it.

Wasp hasn't said anything, which isn't so unusual, so I look at her to get some visual clues as to what's going through that messy head of hers. She could be smiling in amusement, or coolly superior at my lame cutting skills, or completely blank, unwilling to let me in.

But what I do see shocks me. Wasp has gone completely tense- not in fear or anger, though. Her ears are miraculously up for once, not pressed flat against her head or hanging loosely down past her cheeks. What's more is they seem to be perked towards me- strangely reminiscent of a dog catching the sound of something it finds curious. And her mismatched eyes are fixed with scary focus on my oozing finger.

Not sure if I had breached some sort of Faerie protocol or not, I casually shift so that I hide my hand behind my back. "Wasp?"

Her eyes flick up to mine, blazing amber, electric yellow. The tone of her voice is obviously distracted, but I can tell she's listening to me nonetheless. . "Mm- yeah?"

"Could you get me another loaf of bread?" with my uninjured hand I motion to the sandwiches. "I think we can still salvage this."

Wordless, she shuffles to the fridge and shuffles back with a fresh loaf, dumping it onto the counter before grabbing the blood-soaked sandwhich. Before I can so much as get a word in edgewise, my half-civilized girlfriend snaps it down in two or three bites. Then she starts to sort of dance on her tiptoes, arching her neck with her eyebrows up, leaning around me as she tries to find an angle to get a look at my bloody finger again.

My throat bobs. "Uh..."

She scoots a little closer, trailing one hand down my shoulder, along my arm until she has my palm pinched between her index and thumb, pulling my hand up to her face.

"Um, Wasp..."

Her ear twitches and she pauses to glance up at me. I'm sitting on the counter top so I'm actually taller than her for once. Eyes locked, she waits for me to say something. Frozen, her tongue sticks out of her mouth, centimeters away from licking the web of flesh between my fingers.

"...What are you doing?"

"Lickin'," is her mumbled answer before she steps forward, grasping my hand with both of hers now, opening my hand and spreading the fingers wide. She's between my knees and I find myself squeezing her in the ribs as a sort of reflexive action, quick and teasing. I never knew my palm was ticklish until I found the tip of Wasp's tongue brushing against it on her way to my finger. Her eyes are closed in apparent bliss, her shoulders and back hunched like a bird of prey hiding their meal with their wings. I feel the hot slime of it running up the length of my finger- which isn't very long, I have no idea how this moment is lasting as long as it does but great Atmos, why is my heart beating so fast and what would I say if someone walked in now?

Strangely, the pain goes away when she probes at the wound, rough tongue alternating between cat-like, scraping slurps and ticklish, prodding snake jabs. I remember her saying something about there being healing agents in faerie spit- or how it was lucky, or something like that. "Wasp?" I say again, only not in confusion this time. It's a breathless command. Holding the back of her head, I tilt it backwards, forcing her to look at me before I press my mouth against hers. Her grip on my injured hand tightens; her lips part for me, the faint taste of copper still lingering on the edges of her sharp teeth. I scoot closer to the edge of the counter, yanking her towards me with my legs around her waist.

"God, I must be going nuts," I murmur against her lips, fingers idly running through the tangles of her long brown hair.

"Nuh-uh," she disagrees. "You're just a little horny."

"No, I mean, for what I'm about to do."

A ribbon opens up along the back of my palm. I had taken the knife again, deliberately and purposefully drawing a single gash across my skin for her. She backs up and away from me with a clatter of boots, her eyes wide in shock. "Stork!" she says, voice pained and desperate and reprimanding and full of desire all at once. Electric mismatched eyes burn holes through the red line, her whole body aquiver from resisting the urge to lunge at me.

I offer my hand to her, trying not to wince as the pain catches up to me. "Oh come on," I say, wiggling my fingers. "It's going to waste."

She taps her hands together anxiously, her knees bending as she bobs up and down in place, teeth worrying at her lower lip. "Bad idea," she says, sounding almost as though she's trying to reassure herself. "Can't let the floor have it, right?"

"Sure can't," I agree, hand still extended. She takes it in her own, closes the distance between us again, kissing the back of my hand like a gentleman should before her lips curl inwards to try and squeeze as much blood inside her mouth as she can.

One hand slides my sleeve back to hold me by my elbow, thumb gently caressing the inside of it as she kisses my hand again, the palm this time, her teeth barely pricking at the surface in a friendly bite. "You shouldn't have cut yourself," she says, her face crumpling in sadness and tenderness as she rubs my palm against her cheek, eyes closed.

As usual, I am unable to respond to kindness with kindness. I try to cover it up with my usual bluster: "Well, I did. Quit bellyaching and be grateful, I did it for you."

Her eyes snap open at that, pupils dilating and focusing in on me again. "How should I be grateful?" she wants to know, hand moving from my elbow up to my shoulder again, pulling down the collar of my shirt to run a finer along my collarbone.

"Any way I tell you to," I say with a playful growl, pulling her forward for another kiss.


End file.
